Contents

Rationale

Catalan is the native language of a mediterranean area with an excellent backgroung on travel and tourism.

A Catalan-language version of Wikitravel would serve these travellers with information in their native language. In addition, Catalan speakers could add information on their native and adopted countries, regions, and cities to the ca: version of Wikitravel that could then be translated to other languages. All Wikitravellers would benefit from local-contributed information.

Goals

Assemble a group of interested contributors willing to start a new Catalan-language Wikitravel version

Translate the language interface file to Catalan

Choose a go-between who will provide a link between the new Catalan-language version and other Wikitravel language communities

Launch the new language version

Translate key documents that are necessary for new users to understand and contribute to the new language version

Make Catalan-language Wikitravel an integral part of the multilingual Wikitravel community

Contributors

Per the language version policy, we need at least three people to commit to helping to launch this new version. These contributors are expected to help translate the language interface file (see below), translate important interface documents, and otherwise make Catalan-language Wikitravel ready for use by other editors.

Go-between

A go-between for a new language version of Wikitravel acts as an "ambassador" for the new version to the rest of the Wikitravel community. They communicate information on developments in the new version to the rest of the community in monthly go-between reports, and they communicate developments in other languages to the new version's contributors.

Optimally, a go-between should have the following characteristics:

Strong Catalan reading and writing skills (not necessarily native)

Strong English reading and writing skills (not necessarily native)

Some experience with Wikitravel in one of its language versions

Familiarity with Wikitravel's goals, style, and policies

Go-betweens for previous language versions have been chosen by voting, or else just by general consensus. It's up to the Catalan-language Wikitravel contributors listed above to decide how to choose a go-between.

Language file

MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikitravel, uses a language interface file to make the links and names and prompts and stuff readable in other languages. We need to customize a new version to work for Catalan Wikitravel.

The language file for Catalan Wikitravel is Wikitravel:LanguageCa.php. It's currently a copy of the LanguageEs.php that is distributed with MediaWiki. It should be customized to a) refer to Wikitravel, not Wikipedia; b) refer to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 license, not the GNU Free Documentation License; c) refer to travel guides, not encyclopediae. There are probably some other adaptations; it may be useful to refer to the en:Wikitravel:Language.php English-language file for help.